Trip Report "It's Not That Kind of Trip" Trip Report

Okay, so here's what it's not...

It's not a "Senior Week" Trip - well, it kind of is. For our daughter and three friends. But we are just going to be there at the same time, in a different resort, as a just in case safety valve (two of the kids are still under 18).

It's not an "Adults Only" Trip - well, it kind of is. Once we get to WDW, we will say farewell to the kids. But we are doing one dinner with them and driving down and back with them. Oh, and we are also meeting up and doing some touring and meals with some friends while down there and they have 10 year old.

It's not a "First Time Since COVID" Trip - well, it kind of is. We've actually been twice since they reopened, last July and November (and @MeffysMom also went in March) - but this is the first time since restrictions have started to be lifted and my first since vaccination.

It's not a "Try New Things" Trip - well, it kind of is. Obviously, there are no new attractions since our last visit - we had been hoping that Remy or the Guardians or possibly Tron and Clu might have showed up early... or maybe Space 220 (ha!). However we are doing some new dining experiences (different meals at familiar restaurants or new restaurants).

It's not a "Last Minute" Trip - well, it kind of is. Our daughter has been talking about and planning her Senior Week trip since Middle School. But, with COVID, and some wary friends, and changes in friend groups - this trip didn't really come together until a few months ago (which for a trip 6+ years in the making creates a kind of last minute feel) and since COVID restrictions are changing literally by the minute the plans are still changing.

It's not a "Crazy Planners" Trip - well, it kind of is. As some of you have read in my previous Trip Reports, we have a history of doing extensive planning. Not so this time. In fact, the only attraction on our plans is getting Rise passes. Otherwise we are playing our attractions by ear. But our meals are definitely planned and reserved and adjusted and re-planned and re-reserved. And, our daughter has been tracking wait times in a VERY detailed manner to make sure that she and her friends maximize their time.

And, as of this afternoon's announcement, it's not a "Fireworks are Back" Trip since our last day is June 26th... close, but no cigar.

Okay, so now you know what this trip isn't. So, what is it going to be? Yeah we really aren't sure either. But that isn't going to stop me from a trip report! @MeffysMom and I are both high school teachers and our last day for this school year is tomorrow so I'm hoping to bring you some Pre-Trip action and also some fun pictures from the past (especially for those who haven't traveled with us before) tomorrow and Thursday before we hit the road on Friday morning. See you soon!

 

[Songbird76]

AAaaaaaawwwwwww, California Grill---I'm sure the girls were thrilled and happy to be celebrating at such a special place! So glad the food and service was excellent! We had a bad experience there in 2018 but I'm eager to go back and try it again.

I don't think I have ever heard anyone say they had a bad experience at California Grill! Now I'm curious! I've never been there, myself, but have always wanted to.

 

[brifraz]

Alright, time for the last day of our trip. Of course, always a sad one. And on this trip we really didn't have anything planned except to meet the girls when the other half of their crew left on the Magical Express at about 2:30pm. We actually slept in a little bit and got the car all packed up before heading to Olivia's for breakfast.

Not to get too far into things, but I'm currently avoiding eating eggs, so I went with a bit of an odd order. I really wanted a crab cake, but the idea of crab cake eggs benedict sounded great. So, yes, I ordered eggs benedict without the eggs. The waitress asked if there was any protein or similar that I could substitute for the eggs. So, just to be a bit odd I went with turkey sausage. Which means you are about to see a picture of crab cake turkey sausage benedict (and my wife's omelette) - and, yes I did pour the hollandiase sauce over it!

Full of good food, we headed over to the Gurgling Suitcase to say hello to another of our bartender friends - Roberto has been there for many years and we have talked about just about everything under the sun over the years. So it was great to see him and talk about pandemic recovery and his kids getting 'real' jobs and our daughter getting ready for college. Good people! We decided that with our couple of hours until the kids were ready we would make one last stop in Magic Kingdom. And, it being the last day and us being somewhat exhausted from the week - this was the day we were parked in the farthest spot they could muster! No, seriously - for some reason on this trip, they've been parking only one row at a time and then adding the second row later and we got parked in the last row of singles all the way at the far end before they started doubling up the rows. Whats another half mile or so, right?!

Really all we did in the Magic Kingdom was go in for some pictures and enjoy a spin on the Carousel of Progress (I don't think either of us fell asleep...).

As you can see, the clouds were definitely building, but we only got hit by a few raindrops over the course of the afternoon. We headed over to Boardwalk around 2pm and waited in the lobby for the girls (and, yeah, this time we definitely did both fall asleep for a bit). Once they had said farewell to their friends and debated a bit on what to do, we all decided that it was just time to head out so we could have some relax time in St. Augustine where we had a hotel for the night. Luckily that's only a couple hours drive so we got there in time to have a great dinner at the Gas Restaurant (yeah, that really is the name - it's a theme thing and built in an old gas station) AND one last beverage picture for this trip!

And, it was actually a great dinner - basically comfort food with some little twists, which really fit the bill for us. After dinner we did a little driving through the historic areas of St. Augustine and then back to the hotel and asleep pretty quickly. On Sunday, it was a frighteningly all day drive from St. Augustine. Should've been about 12 hours total and took over 14 hours - not a good day on I95 as we were diverted off the interstate twice because of accidents and as we headed north of Richmond multiple map apps told us to use Route 301 up to Baltimore so we diverted once again onto a slower (but at this point not really slower) road. But we did finally get home and rested. Here's one farewell shot of Cinderella castle for today. Next up, the DVC Selfie-fest... I hope you are ready to lots of pictures of the two of us from strange angles and with strange backgrounds!

 

[slipperalwaysfits]

Awwwwwww, what a fun way to end your trip, with the COP and a great meal in St. Augustine! So sorry about the drive taking longer than expected. So frustrating! My in-laws would drive down from Vermont each year and for some reason, Richmond was the city that stressed out my Mil the most (they skipped DC and went through PA) but I've driven through Richmond many times. It's slow but not awful.

So glad we have the map apps to help us re-route now. Much easier than using a giant, physical atlas!

 

[brifraz]

Awwwwwww, what a fun way to end your trip, with the COP and a great meal in St. Augustine! So sorry about the drive taking longer than expected. So frustrating! My in-laws would drive down from Vermont each year and for some reason, Richmond was the city that stressed out my Mil the most (they skipped DC and went through PA) but I've driven through Richmond many times. It's slow but not awful.

So glad we have the map apps to help us re-route now. Much easier than using a giant, physical atlas!

We've driven through Richmond at least 60 times and it's never really an issue (I can only recall a couple times that it's even been slow). It's north of Richmond through DC that's the painful section. Even in the 70s I recall my parents hating that stretch of road (luckily back then we would divert for some of that to visit family in Charlottesville). No matter what time of day or night you drive, the DC to Fredericksburg area will have traffic - it's just a matter of how much!

Being the type A person that I am, I keep close track of our drive times and have a spreadsheet of them. Yeah, I'm that guy...

 

[brifraz]

So, what's the deal with the DVC Scenic Selfie Game? Rather than go over the details, I'll just say it's a way to learn a little bit about some of the things in the parks and take some fun pictures. If you complete the pictures for each park you get a button. They are doing it as part of the 30th anniversary of DVC. Here's a link to the page in case you are interested in learning a little more. DVC Scenic Selfie Game. I'm not sure if you have to be a member to do it, but it looks like you do (sorry!). Oh, and there are little stickers that you can add to the picture if you want (or if you click on 'add' by mistake in some cases).

Let's start off with Animal Kingdom! I'm just going to post these in the order that we completed them, but there really isn't any order to doing it - just finding the spots during your normal touring is the idea. The first is with a lamppost in the Discovery Island section of the park.

Next up was one that for many is a somewhat iconic spot to get an Everest picture (and tends to have a Photopass) in front of the small temple as you enter the area.

A little closer to Everest, there's a spot by the 'hotel' - which I don't know that I had ever looked up and realized the construction going on to add more rooms.

The fourth one is in Dinoland, which I know is often a somewhat controversial area. I've never really been sure how well it fits with the other theming in Animal Kingdom, but the '3 Cross Country Drives in My Life' part of me kind-of likes the homage to road side attractions being built up around something actually legitimate. Anyway, the selfie was with the route sign which is a number important in the history of Animal Kingdom.

Our last stop in Animal Kingdom was in Pandora with one of the manhole covers in the 'man-made' section of the land. Next time you are in Pandora, check out how much changes in the ground, plant growth, etc as you move from the natural area to the man-made side of things.

The button for Animal Kingdom has Simba and Nala on it - I'll share all the buttons at the end of this little adventure!

 

[Dory71]

Thanks for posting this. We may have to do this as well...looks like a fun way to explore the parks.

 

[cgersic]

This IS fun! Had no idea about the Hotel construction either. So cool!

 

[brifraz]

Okay, let's head over to Hollywood Studios now! We actually did most of these pictures twice because we did them on our first day at Studios, but then closed the window in the game which clears the pictures. Lesson learned, don't close that window!

First up is somewhat to be expected at the Crossroads right upon entry into the park. Everybody always is looking down the street to Grauman's Theatre!

This little window somewhat near the lake represents where Disney really got started as a business venture. Sadly, the whole 'sticker' thing didn't work on this one. We thought we hit the 'no sticker' button, but obviously not!

For a little more old Hollywood history, we head almost right next to that last one for a picture in front of Min and Bill's Dockside Diner.

Over to Batuu for a picture with a trash can. Yup, that's right. If you don't know the Easter egg of the number that is on every trash can in Galaxy's Edge, I encourage you to check it out (and, yes, I did call into the trash can to see if Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie were okay).

Last picture in Hollywood Studios is in Toy Story Land, just in front of the Woody's Lunchbox where you can find just one of the hundreds (yeah, I think it really is likely in the hundreds) of A113 references in the Disney/Pixar universe.

With all our tasks complete, we headed to the DVC kiosk to get our next button - one of the Aliens was on this one. I should note that each time we secured our buttons, we had great chats with the DVC reps who were there. I know chatting up guests is pretty much their entire job description, but it is still fun to talk to them and many have some good tales to tell.

 

[brifraz]

Let's head over to Magic Kingdom next for some selfie fun there!

First stop is (again, of course) the Emporium.

Next is Walt Disney's window above the Ice Cream parlor.

Over in Adventureland, taking a lot at the top of the Tiki Room building.

In Liberty Square, we took a quick look at the windows and the shutters thereupon. This was one of the few times that we actually had to look a little bit for the actual spot for the selfie - mainly because we came into the area via Adventureland and not from the hub.

The last stop on the selfie tour of Magic Kingdom was at the classic Carousel of Progress.

Having completed all our pictures, we headed to the DVC kiosk in Tomorrowland and secured our Fairy Godmother pins! One last park to visit.

 

[brifraz]

Well, it's time for the final DVC Selfie adventure and that brings us to World Showcase at Epcot. Each of these locations has a little history or culture lesson about the architecture, art, or artifact that you are standing in front of. So, off we go to China first!

To be totally culturally appropriate we contemplated the unique rock formation for a few minutes and also got the unique view through the rocks to the replica of the Temple of Heaven. Next up was Italy - the picture here is actually reflecting on the new movie Luca (which we watched just last night and really enjoyed) with the statue of the fisherman on the pedestal.

In America, the focus was on the architecture of the building and this little corner in particular.

In Japan, the view was pretty obvious with the main pagoda as the backdrop.

Moving over to Morocco, we had to move around the construction a little bit to get ourselves to the perfect spot, but we did get there eventually - hoping that all the little shops and the main restaurant get back open soon!

Last, but most certainly not least, was Canada and the totem poles up the stairs from the main thoroughfare, and speaking of getting some things open - with the upstairs shops closed and the movie theater currently being transitioned to stations for Food and Wine, Canada was a bit empty feeling.

And perhaps even worse (if you have followed my trip reports before you know they are important to me) we never managed to get to see a Jammitors show on this trip. Hopefully on the next trip (more on that soon). But, at this point we had finished all our Epcot selfies and secured our Figment buttons!

 

[brifraz]

Before we take a look at those buttons, I'd like to take a moment to hop onto my 'old man' soapbox to complain about technology. I know that this sounds very 'get off my lawn,' but I am quite frustrated with technology right now. I took photos of the buttons with my iPhone. But, my iPhone isn't currently recognizing my laptop for Airdrop... so I took photos of the buttons with my wife's phone, which IS showing up on Airdrop on the laptop. But... not on the phone. No problem. Loaded the photos to Google Photo so I could just pull them up on the laptop. Alas, when we go to Google Photos on the laptop, nothing is showing up more recently than March - no idea why, they show up in the app for Google Photos, but not on the actual webpage. Finally went ahead and just emailed them to myself. And now... just waiting for the email to show up. And waiting... And waiting...

So, to summarize - all technology hates me. And the pictures of the buttons will be up sometime later. No idea how much later.

On a totally different topic (no pictures will be utilized or harmed in this topic), our next trip to WDW. We have a trip booked for Christmas. We do a three year rotation of Christmas time with each of our families and then every third year on our own. This year is on our own and we decided that we would do another Disney in hopes that everything will be back to normal, PLUS we will be able to enjoy some of the new 50th stuff in December! Then... this trip happened. And both the two of us and our daughter as well decided that we needed to have some time together at Disney. So, @MeffysMom scoured the RCI timeshare availability and mapped things out with our calendar in August and... yup, we are going back in late August. And, yes, I'm sure that I'll be doing another trip report. This one will be all family time all the time and we are letting our daughter take the lead in planning, which will be fun and a bit different as well.

It's been about 20 minutes and I think the button photos are in my inbox now, so it's just a matter of getting them loaded here! See you very shortly (I hope).

 

[brifraz]

Here are the buttons.

Simba and Nala at Animal Kingdom.

An Alien at Hollywood Studios.

Fairy Godmother at Magic Kingdom.

The 'bonus' button at Epcot for Luca.

And the main Epcot button with Figment.

They are all really cute and it was definitely a lot of fun taking the selfies and looking at some things in different ways around each of the parks. If you are DVC, I definitely encourage doing it for a little change of pace in the parks!

 

[LisaBelle]

Those buttons are really cute! Excited to hear you’re heading back so soon! I will be following!

 

[Swissmiss]

Before we take a look at those buttons, I'd like to take a moment to hop onto my 'old man' soapbox to complain about technology. I know that this sounds very 'get off my lawn,' but I am quite frustrated with technology right now. I took photos of the buttons with my iPhone. But, my iPhone isn't currently recognizing my laptop for Airdrop... so I took photos of the buttons with my wife's phone, which IS showing up on Airdrop on the laptop. But... not on the phone. No problem. Loaded the photos to Google Photo so I could just pull them up on the laptop. Alas, when we go to Google Photos on the laptop, nothing is showing up more recently than March - no idea why, they show up in the app for Google Photos, but not on the actual webpage. Finally went ahead and just emailed them to myself. And now... just waiting for the email to show up. And waiting... And waiting...

So, to summarize - all technology hates me. And the pictures of the buttons will be up sometime later. No idea how much later.

On a totally different topic (no pictures will be utilized or harmed in this topic), our next trip to WDW. We have a trip booked for Christmas. We do a three year rotation of Christmas time with each of our families and then every third year on our own. This year is on our own and we decided that we would do another Disney in hopes that everything will be back to normal, PLUS we will be able to enjoy some of the new 50th stuff in December! Then... this trip happened. And both the two of us and our daughter as well decided that we needed to have some time together at Disney. So, @MeffysMom scoured the RCI timeshare availability and mapped things out with our calendar in August and... yup, we are going back in late August. And, yes, I'm sure that I'll be doing another trip report. This one will be all family time all the time and we are letting our daughter take the lead in planning, which will be fun and a bit different as well.

It's been about 20 minutes and I think the button photos are in my inbox now, so it's just a matter of getting them loaded here! See you very shortly (I hope).

The was for the technology issues, because of course the reaction of a new trip is more along the lines of:

 

[RememberWhen]

Here are the buttons.

Simba and Nala at Animal Kingdom.
View attachment 570076

An Alien at Hollywood Studios.
View attachment 570077

Fairy Godmother at Magic Kingdom.
View attachment 570075

The 'bonus' button at Epcot for Luca.
View attachment 570074

And the main Epcot button with Figment.
View attachment 570078

They are all really cute and it was definitely a lot of fun taking the selfies and looking at some things in different ways around each of the parks. If you are DVC, I definitely encourage doing it for a little change of pace in the parks!

The buttons are so fun! Any idea how long they’re doing it? We don’t go down until October.

 

[brifraz]

The buttons are so fun! Any idea how long they’re doing it? We don’t go down until October.

I would guess all of 2021 for the 30th, unless they run out of buttons!

 

[erstwo]

Just wanted to thank you for your trip report. I read it daily and it really helped me prepare for our 1-5 July trip with my extended family. My 85 year old father in law was with us (he hadn't been to the parks in 13 years) and all the mentions of rain interrupting your plans led me to order a special poncho that would fit all the way over my father in law AND over his scooter - it ended up being invaluable - keeping him dry and keeping the rest of us from worrying about the possibility of a rain shower on the way to dinner/ parks, etc.
Such fun to follow along and now to see your selfies and buttons. Thanks again!

 

[RememberWhen]

I would guess all of 2021 for the 30th, unless they run out of buttons!

That would be great! Especially as we’re expecting it to be crowded and it’ll be a fun distraction from all the people. How do you start?

 

[brifraz]

That would be great! Especially as we’re expecting it to be crowded and it’ll be a fun distraction from all the people. How do you start?

Disney Vacation Club Scenic Selfies

Disney Vacation Club Scenic Selfies

dvcmembergame.com

There should be a ‘ready’ button at the bottom!

 

[brifraz]

Just wanted to thank you for your trip report. I read it daily and it really helped me prepare for our 1-5 July trip with my extended family. My 85 year old father in law was with us (he hadn't been to the parks in 13 years) and all the mentions of rain interrupting your plans led me to order a special poncho that would fit all the way over my father in law AND over his scooter - it ended up being invaluable - keeping him dry and keeping the rest of us from worrying about the possibility of a rain shower on the way to dinner/ parks, etc.
Such fun to follow along and now to see your selfies and buttons. Thanks again!

Glad you followed along and my report helped inform your trip. Hope yours was awesome.